


'cause we belong together now

by wintercreek



Category: due South
Genre: F/F, community: due south seekrit santa
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-01-03
Updated: 2010-01-03
Packaged: 2017-10-05 17:13:53
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,535
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/44072
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wintercreek/pseuds/wintercreek
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>She's listening, so intent on what she's not hearing that she almost misses the smell. Something floral is happening in there.</p>
            </blockquote>





	'cause we belong together now

**Author's Note:**

  * For [spuffyduds](https://archiveofourown.org/users/spuffyduds/gifts).



> For the due South Seekrit Santa exchange 2009. Thanks to Were Duck and Isis for betaing.

"Honey, I'm home!" Frannie shoves the kitchen door shut and drops her keys on the counter with a clatter. Her arms are aching under the weight of her grocery bags and there's a bobby pin sticking in her hair at just the wrong angle. It's all the hat's fault, somehow, even if she's not wearing it anymore.

There's no answer to her call, which has Frannie a little worried. Something feels off about the house, but Frannie can't put her finger on it. Maybe something's been moved on the kitchen table; she's not sure. She worries while she puts the frozen food in the freezer, while she stacks cans, while she fills the fruit bowl and tucks the vegetables into the crisper.

Her gun's in their lock box already, put safely away when she'd stopped at home earlier to change out of her uniform before continuing on to the grocery store. A knife won't do - overkill at close range, ineffective at a distance - so Frannie settles for grabbing the big heavy flashlight that lives next to the door. Five years walking a beat and she's never had to go into a bad situation without her gun.

This is almost certainly overreacting, Frannie knows, and there's probably a good reason for the house to be so quiet. Something not sinister or suspicious at all. Still, how many people has she seen who could have benefited from a little suspicion? She lifts the flashlight up and braces the butt against her forehead, between her eyes. When she flicks it on, she'll see everything and whoever might be lurking there won't be able to see her at all, just like Fraser taught her.

Ten silent steps from here to the bedroom, and now she's not thinking of Fraser at all anymore. The door is shut, which it almost never is. She's listening, so intent on what she's not hearing that she almost misses the smell. Something floral is happening in there.

Frannie flings the door open and ducks around the door frame. When there's no response, she hits the flashlight's power button and gets ready to move fast. Nothing happens in the room, though: no one in sight, no flash of movement, no crouching form under the bed or in the closet. There's a bouquet of roses, ten of them in shades of coral and yellow and pink, on Frannie's dresser.

Starting to feel silly, Frannie checks the rest of the house. Everything is just as it should be, windows locked and nothing moved or missing. There's nothing wrong here, she concludes. Elaine's out somewhere, and there are roses on her dresser, and everything else is just fine. The relief makes her fall on to the bed, giggling with nerves, and that's how Elaine finds her when she walks in a minute later.

Frannie tries to say hello like a normal person, but it comes out as a giggle-snort that has Elaine snickering behind her hand. "What on earth, Fran?" she asks, grinning.

"I got worried when you weren't here, and I knew something was off," Frannie gasps, "and then I didn't find anything wrong but roses!" When Elaine crinkles her brow, Frannie sobers up and says, "Not that the roses are wrong. Roses are never wrong! But that was what was weird, the silence and the smell of roses. And I almost brained 'em with a flashlight!"

Elaine shakes her head. "Okay, I got about 45% of that, but let's try again later. C'mon, I got takeout from your favorite place."

They have the best sushi in Chicago for dinner, Frannie moaning a little bit over the rainbow rolls and Elaine's eyes watering when she gets too much wasabi in one go. Frannie drags her back into their bedroom afterward so she can admire the killer roses and tell her story again, more sensibly this time. "Action, adventure, flowers, sushi: you got me everything a girl could want. You know, for one that falls on a weeknight this was a pretty good anniversary," she concludes. "I'm going to have to work pretty hard to top this next year."

"I think you'll manage." Elaine smiles warmly, the way that makes her eyes crinkle, and says, "I'm glad you liked the roses, even if they did freak you out. Happy ten years, Frannie."

"You can freak me out with roses any day," Frannie teases. "Happy ten years, Elaine." She almost can't believe it's been that long. Longer than her marriage lasted, longer than she's been a cop, longer than anything, really, that she's made of herself. She looks at Elaine and thinks, _I really got it right, didn't I?_

Frannie opens her lips to reminisce, mouth full of "Remember when we first moved in together? Remember when you helped me cram for the entrance exam? Remember the night we told my Ma about us? Remember-" but not a single one makes its way out. Elaine is already kissing her, sliding her tongue over Frannie's and pushing her down on the bed, overwhelming Frannie with the smells of roses and desire. There's not a single memory that needs to be given voice between them anyway. Elaine remembers them all, and Frannie knows it.

She knows, too that they remember when Elaine kissed Frannie over coffee in the shop down the street from the 27th. They'd met to talk about Frannie's plans for the academy, and when Frannie had exhausted her questions their eyes had met for one breathless moment. "I think I'm gonna do it," Frannie had whispered, and then one or both of them had leaned forward and one or both of them had been drawn right along like magnets. They don't always kiss with that kind of energy anymore, but tonight Frannie feels that pull in her bones and lets it tingle on her skin. Every inch of her is hypersensitive; she almost shivers when Elaine pushes her shirt up and off.

They undress each other slowly, kissing the whole while, stripping down all the barriers between them and pressing their skin together, here in this bed they bought three years ago, in the bedroom they painted four years ago, under the duvet that's only two months old. The scent of Elaine's arousal is drowning out the roses now. Frannie doesn't mind.

Elaine raises her eyebrows and asks, "Wanna use the strap-on tonight?"

Frannie shakes her head. "I just want you," she says, and she tongues Elaine's nipple and slides two fingers over Elaine's clit, smooth and just hard enough. It took some time to learn each other's ways, but Frannie cuts off those memories before they start so she can focus on now. One finger slips into Elaine, looking for the sweet spot, and Frannie moves down to taste her. She lets her mouth wander while her fingers work, reminding herself of Elaine's smooth inner thighs, then brings her attention back to Elaine's clit. Her tongue has always been the best way to bring Elaine to a shaking, gasping orgasm, even when Frannie didn't know what she was doing. She's figured out what she's doing by now, though.

Elaine's arching her back, fingers clenching in the sheets and small sounds escaping her. Frannie slows her tongue, keeping Elaine here on the ragged edge where she makes those needy noises Frannie loves. She waits until Elaine manages to say, "Fran, _please,_" and that's when Frannie presses down with her lips and curls one finger upward just right and Elaine comes apart. As she's drawing out the aftershocks, Frannie spares a thought for how much she's come to love the taste of Elaine. She'd thought it was weird but kind of okay the first time; now, she can't imagine enjoying any other taste as much.

Frannie's so turned on that, when Elaine sits up and flattens Frannie with a wicked smile, she almost comes right then. It doesn't take much of Elaine's hot breath, Elaine's clever fingers to carry Frannie over the edge. It's delicious, all the tension in her body built unbearably high and then draining out in an instant. The last bits of adrenaline from earlier in the evening rush from her system and she's finally completely relaxed.

In the quiet afterwards, when the sweat on their bodies has cooled and Frannie can feel the beginnings of the good ache in her muscles, Elaine props herself up on one elbow and makes eye contact with Frannie. "You were really going to go after whoever you thought was here, no gun, nothing but that huge flashlight?"

"Well, yeah," Frannie says. "I thought - I don't know exactly what I thought, except that maybe you were in trouble. I was worried, you know? And there's only so much time you can spend on the force before your brain automatically goes to the worst. What was I going to do, retreat and call for help without knowing what was going on?"

Elaine leans down to kiss Frannie, breathing, "I know, I know," on to her lips. "I feel the same." When she pulls back and lies down again, she adds, "I love knowing I can count on you like that. My knight in shiny blue cotton-poly blend. My hero: my Frannie."


End file.
